Most fishermen own a number of fishing poles, whether for ice fishing or fishing on open water. As such, fishermen commonly transport multiple fishing rods at a time and sometimes fish with more than one rod at a time.
A number of fishing rod holders have therefore been designed to support fishing poles either for transport of during fishing. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,603,019 to Smeltzer teaches attaching a fishing pole holder attached to a fishing bucket at angle to the bucket to support fishing rods during fishing. U.S. Pat. No. 5,303,500 to Luukonen depicts a bucket with an attached tray having various compartments for holding fishing gear, including slots that grasp and retain a fishing rod tip to retain the fishing rod. U.S. Pat. No. 7,594,353 to Lucky and U.S. Publ. Pat. App. No. 2005/0252071 to Urban utilize hollow tubes attached to a bucket for the purpose of supporting a fishing rod, U.S. Pat. No. 5,491,923 to Zingrone supports a fishing rod at an angle from a bucket with a cradle attached to the bucket.
There are various drawbacks to each of these designs. For example, they may not be suitable for both transport of fishing rods and supporting rods during fishing, they may cause damage to fishing rods, and they may not stably support the rod to prevent accidental dislodgement from the holder or may not allow rods to be easily inserted into the holder.
In addition, fishing requires significant additional equipment such as fishing lures or hooks, fishing line, etc. It can also be desirable in ice fishing in particular to utilize a fish finder that includes a device housing, a battery, and associated cables. Thus, a fisherman or ice fisherman may also be required to carry a number of containers that hold various equipment in addition to one or more fishing poles or, in the case of ice fishing, tip-ups.